The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak Page B

blue-and-yellow IKEA , and sped up. “Faster.” Jonas bounced in his seat. “We’re gonna lose him.”
    Madison sped up, even though she was already twenty kilometres over the speed limit. “What are you going to do when you find out where he lives?”
    â€œStalk him right back. I mean, he’s going to all this trouble. Maybe he’s psychotic but maybe he’s the exquisite man I’ve been looking for to settle down with, raise a brood.”
    â€œRaise a brood?”
    â€œGo to church on Sundays, join a community league. Get a garden going, put a block parent sign up in my window. Get into a book club and start watching Dr. Phil .”
    Madison tried to imagine Jonas doing all these things, and to her surprise it worked. “Why don’t we get married and you can help me raise my brood. It’ll be a marriage of convenience, with the odd neck massage, like in Hollywood.”
    Jonas swallowed and looked down at his hands for a moment. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Madison realized she had said them in a tone that was entirely too sincere. She wanted to drive the Yukon off the highway and into a bluff of spruce trees. They passed the Nisku industrial park and the airport in silence.
    â€œBy which I mean to say I hate you,” she said, finally.
    This was atmosphere tonic. Jonas smiled. “No, it is I who hate you, you awful bitch, and I intend to hate your child with equal…” The Mustang began to slow down for the turnoffinto Leduc. Jonas reached over and grabbed Madison by the arm. “Leduc! Leduc!”
    The Mustang drove past the McDonald’s and the Safeway and the car dealership, through the main intersection in Leduc. Madison followed Carlos until he reached an intersection on the south end of the park surrounding the Civic Centre. The Mustang turned right.
    Near the Leduc Golf and Country Club, the Mustang turned into a crescent of large houses facing a reservoir. There were Buicks about.
    â€œWe’ve driven into the seventies,” said Jonas.
    â€œYour stalker is rich.” Madison turned off the lights.
    Carlos pulled into a driveway and the garage door opened, revealing a space filled with snowmobiles, red all-terrain vehicles, and an extensive collection of tools. Parked next to the Mustang was a large truck with four tires in the back: duallies. Carlos took a sports bag from the trunk of the Mustang and dropped it on the garage floor as the automatic door closed behind him.
    â€œAll that’s missing is a poster of Heather Locklear in a pink bikini.” Jonas sat back in his seat and shook his head.
    â€œMaybe he’s house-sitting.”
    â€œOur boy’s practically a Texan.”
    They sat in the Yukon for several minutes, watching the lights go on and off. Eventually, Jonas opened the door and stepped out. He sneaked up to the house and peered into the front window. A flock of something, perhaps bats, whispered through the trees and over the Yukon. Madison searched the radio until she found the French classical station on FM . Thiswas the sort of music they sold at mothers’ fairs, brain music for babies, so Madison turned it up.
    As Jonas slouched to the Yukon, along the sidewalk, “Born to Be Wild” began to play on the cellular phone, interrupting the purity of Isaac Stern doing Schubert. Madison picked it up and imagined, once again, Jonas as a father. Then, fatherlessness in general.
    Instead of saying hello she smacked herself in the head with the phone, turned it off, and tossed the warm bundle of silver on to Garith’s backseat bed.

 
    24
    an authentic conversation
    F our out of five Death in Philosophy students arrived for the field trip at West Edmonton Mall’s World Waterpark. When Professor Raymond Terletsky arrived at the lobby, one of the men–Matt–was playing Ms. Pac-Man on a wristwatch. The other three–Jess, Dannika, and Paul–watched the